Let me start out by saying I was a HUGE fan of FarCry, and to this day hold it as one of my top FPSes. I admired the open environment, and how many ways you could accomplish your objectives. Above all else, the game was beautiful, and the lush landscape with all the drawn foliage was amazing.


^^^Farcry, not Crysis

Because I was such a huge Far Cry fan, I followed the development of Crysis with bated breath. I read every release, watched every video, and blew a load with every new development.

Hell, I even built a new computer so I could play Crysis when it came out.

Then finally, November 13th came, I rushed out and got my pre-order, and installed the Holy Grail that is Crysis...

I've now spent a week with the game, and I am so disappointed I can't even begin to cover everything that has pissed me off about this game. This was supposed to be a new and better Far Cry, and all I ended up with was a Far Cry knock-off with a lame power suit with no power...

This leads me to my list of why



1) The story has no start, if you thought the "special agent on a vacation to the Isle of Dr. Moreau" (FarCry) was bad, wait until you start Crysis. There is NO BACKSTORY, and NO INTRODUCTION (save some basic military banter and names). You start in a chopper, jump out and get lost... maybe an hour later you actually get a tidbit of story line.

Usually a good basic rule to starting a adventure/mission in a game is to give some sort of information or purpose, Crysis does neither. While this does get you strait into the action, even the most meager story basics would have been nice.




2) After hearing how amazing this game looked, when I actually got in game, it wasn't what I was hoping for. It looks more like the original Far Cry engine, with slightly updated lighting effects, and vastly improved character models.

While the characters are some of the most detailed I think I've seen, the surroundings still suffer. There's times when I'm moving through the jungle where I swear I'm playing the original Far Cry. The mass amounts of foliage are admirable, but they are still using fairly low poly count leaf models/textures. (note: I'm running DX10 on all very high)

In my opinion the vast seas of foliage end up looking like giant piles of green jaggys, and even with AA and AS maxed, I can't help but see Far Cry in all the pixelation. The water is fantastic, but then again, Far Cry's water was almost as breath taking, and that was years ago.




3) While the first hour or so of playing with the nano suit is really cool, after the suit switching "newness" wears off, you may realize like I did, that your playing the same old first person shooter with a new interface. The suit adds some cool options to your attacks, but it has a very, very small power supply, and usually it's dry well before the fight is over, putting you right back into the same ole FPS.




4) I SWEAR this is the exact same AI as FarCry had. They still get shot in the face and turn the other way, they still get stuck trying to find you, yes... they still act like retards. There have been plenty of games recently that have made good enemy AI... (CoD4 has smart enemies) Why does it seem like I'm fighting the same retarded army then?




5) While multi-player is interesting, it doesn't feel like it has any really stand out qualities that can hold it above the waves of online shooters. With games like CoD4, Halo 3, and TF2 offering such amazing multi-player, I can't see Crysis holding onto a strong gaming community once the "newness" wears off.



After all the hype and press, I can't help but feel like they just enhanced FarCry's graphics and spit it right back out. The story is weak and slow to develop, the gameplay is nothing to write home about, and the graphics (while pretty) still show major weaknesses.




I spent over a year following Crysis...

what a waste of time.